The present disclosure herein relates to semiconductor devices and methods of manufacturing the same and, more particularly, to non-volatile memory devices and methods of manufacturing the same.
Semiconductor devices are widely used in the electronics industry, in part because of their small size, functionality, and/or low manufacturing costs. Semiconductor devices can be categorized, for example, as semiconductor memory devices that store data, semiconductor logic devices that process data, and hybrid semiconductor devices having both the function of semiconductor memory devices and the function of semiconductor logic devices.
As the electronics industry has advanced, the required level for the performance characteristics of semiconductor devices has increased. For example, the requirement for semiconductor devices of high speed may be increasing, and/or the requirement for high reliability of semiconductor devices may be increasing. However, patterns in semiconductor devices may be increasingly made smaller (finer) due to the trend of increasing the integration density of semiconductor devices. Decreasing the pattern size (line width) of semiconductor devices has made it more and more difficult to realize semiconductor devices having high operating speeds and/or excellent reliability.